The Apple Way

Most hardware and software companies experience cycles of success and failure, that pattern is certainly not a compelling publishing topic. When you add in the name of Apple Computer, the picture changes from ho-hum to humdinger though. Right now, Apple's shares have surged to a 4-year high, and along with the runaway success of Apple's iPod (10 million iPods sold as of Dec 2004, and 2 million+ units sold in the last 3 months alone), Apple stock seems poised to only increase in value. There's a "halo" effect beginning to take hold — simple put, consumers and business people alike are so…